Pneumatic tires made of rubber, organic fiber materials, steel members and the like have thus far been used in vehicles such as passenger cars. General rubber materials that have been used in conventional pneumatic tires do not have problems in terms of thermal resistance or the like. However, the production processes for such tires usually involve multiple processes such as kneading, seating, molding and vulcanization, and an increase in productivity has been requested.
In view of the above, in recent years, there have been an attempt to use resin materials, particularly, thermoplastic resins or thermoplastic elastomers, as tire materials, in consideration of their light weights and ease of molding and recycling. Pneumatic tires formed using thermoplastic polymer materials are disclosed, for example, in Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open (JP-A) No. 2003-104008) listed below. These thermoplastic polymer materials (thermoplastic resins) have many advantages in terms of an increase in productivity, for example, compatibility with injection molding.
Further, tires using thermoplastic polyamide-based elastomers as the thermoplastic polymer materials are also proposed (see Patent Document 2 (JP-A No. 2012-46030)).